Civilian
by hewhoistomriddle
Summary: A series of oneshots on being a civilian in a world of shinobi. Ch9 Paperwings. I pray they will save you from the world.
1. Fruitless

**Summary: **He was twenty, in love, and helpless to do anything about it. A civilian falls in love with Hyuuga Hanabi. Part 1 of the "Civilian" Series.

* * *

**Fruitless

* * *

**He first meets her when her teammates drag her into his uncle's shop for a snack. He is thirteen and working as an apprentice baker. She is eleven and fresh out of the academy.

Her clothes are a pristine white like her eyes and, unlike her sweaty dirty teammates, there is no indication that she just came from a grueling training session. She stands with her back straight and head held high, _hitai-ite_ round her neck.

His initial thoughts are that she is too _cold_, too _severe_, with her brow furrowed and her lips in an almost scowl.

But then she bites into the piping-hot bread and her eyes widen is pleasant surprise.

"It's good," she says and a soft smile breaks out on her face.

He can't help but smile as well.

* * *

She regularly comes into the shop after that, trying something different every time. He notes that she likes the freshly-baked buns (_still warm and with the fragment bread smell_) sticky dango and sweets.

It is not long before he learns her name.

_Hyuuga Hanabi_, a member of one of Konoha's most prestigious clan. He does not yet know the extent of the significance of this, even more so that of her unmarked forehead.

All he knows is that Hanabi always says 'ittadakimasu' before she eats, consumes food in tiny bites, has a sweet tooth, and unconsciously smiles whenever it is satiated.

* * *

Her visits to the shop are almost regular, so he is worried when she does not arrive for her weekly fare (she buys breads by the dozen now, because 'decent food is severely lacking in missions').

Instead, a woman who is undoubtedly her sister comes in. She pulls out a list written in elegant, somewhat jagged script and asks for Hanabi's favorite foods.

She is polite, soft-spoken and beautiful but, loyally, he thinks that Hanabi is better _even if_ she acted harshly and impatiently sometimes.

"How is Hanabi-san?" he asks, and she looks slightly surprised that he knows her sister's name.

"My sister is fine," she answers then, a bit awkwardly, as if unsure to say anything more, adds, "She pushed herself too hard yesterday."

He wonders how hard is 'too hard' for Hyuuga Hanabi.

_If only he could see the number of craters that littered the Hyuuga compound._

* * *

Like all teenage boys, he fears rejection. And it will certainly be _rejection_ with this girl.

She is richer than him. She is smarter than him. She is stronger than him. He has nothing to offer this _kunoichi_, as his friends repeatedly tell him.

_So he does not say anything._

* * *

She knows him by face now and, _true to her heritage_, reads him like an open book. But, being the lady that she is, does not mention anything about his growing infatuation with her.

Eventually (after a week or so), she brushes it off and forgets it like all ninjas do with tiny, insignificant, mushy _feelings_.

* * *

One day she comes in, fifteen years old, and wearing worn green vest and another responsibility around her shoulders.

Then she is gone for months at a time. And when she drops by, she smells of _Suna_, of _Iwa_, of Mist or Wave. She asks for black coffee instead of sweet tea with her food, and eats much faster than before, no longer taking time between her small bites.

He notices the small scars on her arms and the way she walks with her hands positioned ready to strike. He has seen many other men and women like this and _despairs_.

It pains him to see her being turned into a soldier.

* * *

He is icing cakes when the village when a missing-nin infiltrates the village and comes dangerously close to the shop.

It is the first time he sees her in combat, veins bulging around her eyes and chakra glowing at her hands. Her teammates are at her back, ready to step in when necessary.

He doesn't know it but her _Jyuuken _is perfectly executed, every hit designed to take out a chakra point.

He just knows she _impressed _the hell out of him. _And maybe took ten years off his life in the process.  
_

* * *

Time passes and he sees her sister again while on an errand at the market. At her side is an impressive man, a known prodigy who is easily one of the Village's strongest.

He watches them for only a second before they notice his gaze. The man levels – not a _glare_,_ he probably would have wet his pants at that_ – but also not an entirely friendly look at him.

He imagines Hanabi with her family like this –_an overprotective father, cousin, and brother-in-law_ – and gulps.

He loses his nerve a second time before he even realizes it.

* * *

When he is nineteen, he grins at the proud smile she wears when she asks for a large, fancy cake to celebrate her promotion to _jounin_. Inside, he wonders how much farther she is leaving him behind.

Then he reminds himself that she is not and cannot ever leave him behind. _That _would entail them being on the same level in the past. He had not ever been, _and never will be_, in the same league as her.

* * *

When she is eighteen she comes in with a _man_ and he has to bite back the feeling of jealousy and resentment that floods his chest. _He has no claim on her, he never has._

The man is tall, handsome and distinctly _shinobi_. He catches the name 'Konohamaru' and seethes silently as he drips glaze over some rolls.

_Never in his life had he wished so hard that he'd been good enough to enter the academy._

* * *

He is a baker and shop proprietor – _without a clan, without an iota of skill to save himself and without even the courage to admit his feelings._

She is Hyuuga Hanabi, _Konoha jounin and heiress to the Hyuuga_.

He is twenty, in love and helpless to do anything about it.

* * *

_Might as well be a monkey reaching for the moon._

* * *

_Owari

* * *

_

**Notes: **I can't believe I wrote this in less than an hour. My first story in this series was supposed to be something different (and more than halfway finished currently) but inspiration struck and struck _hard_. You can guess at the Hinata pairing (Personally, it's itahina but its open to anyone).

**Next up** (if you're interested)**!**

**For this series…**

**Title: **Happy Endings. **Summary**: A team of ninjas on an escort and protect mission. Civilian's POV.

**Overall…**

**Title: **Treasure (on Epitome) **Summary: **All is well for Hyuuga Hinata until she is captured by Itachi of the Sharingan and the Jolly Akatsuki. Sailing over the high seas with the most fearsome crew in history with Captain-of-the-Guard Neji and her own fiancé Uchiha Sasuke in hot pursuit, getting into bar brawls and continually being mistaken for a wench, and trying (_in vain_) to make sense of her kidnapper, what's a lady to do? ItaHina. Features Superstitious!Hidan (_"What the hell! She's a fucking girl! It's fucking bad enough we already have Blue and Blondie ("I'm a MAN, un!")!Oh, Jashin-sama, you might as well sink our asses right now.")

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_

Thanks for reading! You have the option _not to_, but please never underestimate the effect of a good review on an author.


	2. Happy Endings

**Notes: **Part two of the civilian series.

**Warnings: **It's amazingly angsty.

**

* * *

**

**HAPPY ENDINGS**

* * *

_When you're a child, being a ninja is the greatest thing ever_.

**

* * *

**

"…_and so the ninja brought the princess back to her village where she and the prince lived happily ever after." Her mother finished and kissed her on the forehead._

"_Ne, ne, kaa-san, I want to be a ninja when I grow up!"_

_Her mother's smile evaporated._

"_You can't."_

**

* * *

**

Her mother was right. For twenty years she'd lived a normal life of a village girl from an affluent, high-born family, in a world separate from _them_. Most of her time was spent learning about maintaining the household and being an ideal wife, learning a few specialized skills to get by, and going out with friends. Her days were light and carefree and her future, _if the message from the daimyo was to be believed_, was secure.

She'd always wondered though, _what if _she'd taken that alternative path… An exciting life, dangerous adventures, unparalleled speed and agility, the ability to break through mountains and create thunderstorms… she'd heard all the stories, read the tales about the fearsome clans and unbelievable bloodlines, witnessed men jumping rooftops and walking on lakes, seen the metallic glint of weapons and felt the scars they left on the terrain…

She felt _envious _that she herself – nor anyone she knew – did not have such a thrilling and romantic lifestyle.

**

* * *

**

Long before the escort arrived, she worked herself into an understandable anticipation. A son of nobility from a small country had come through with a proposal. Word was sent that a team of shinobi would accompany her entourage through bandit country.

When they arrived, two boys and a girl wearing the distinctive headgear of the a Hidden Village, she had fretted over them – _what did they want to eat, won't it be too cold with their rather thin clothes, did they care for some futons_ – until the female gently but firmly told her that it wasn't necessary, that they had survived in far worst conditions.

They were _young_, younger than her, but they worked very quickly and efficiently, wasting no time in loading up her carriage and conferring with her troupe about the mission plan.

"This is a B-ranked escort mission," The dark-haired rather handsome male explained, rolling out a map of the region. "The danger level is not high but the client requested stronger protection in case of kidnappers. The three of us should be more than capable. If you feel any potential problems cropping up, inform us so extra precautions can be taken. We'll take this route along the border and we'll probably be at our destination within three days."

He looked up to confirm that everyone understood and glanced at his teammates, a silent command in his gaze. They nodded and disappeared into the surrounding foliage to scout ahead for ambushes. The leader remained with their group, easily the youngest and shortest male around.

She stole a glimpse of his silent boyish profile and smiled softly. They were _not at all_ as she expected.

**

* * *

**

She approached the girl first, a few hours into their journey when the team members switched roles. It was a likely choice, for brides-to-be should not be talking unnecessarily with younger men and, _well_, the girl was the least intimidating of the three. _Small_, if you looked past the bulky gear, and looked almost too _frail_ for carrying the amount of equipment she had.

"Ne, cold, isn't it?" Of course, when in doubt, talk about the weather.

The girl turned to her, perhaps surprised at being addressed but didn't show it, and shrugged.

Her hurt must have shown on her face because the kunoichi relented. "We are nearing Snow country after all…"

She smiled at the attempt in conversation. "Yes, I suppose I must get used to it. I will miss this." She waved a hand at the scenery, rolling fields of grass slowly becoming dense forests.

"But, it must be an honor, surely, to be chosen for this." The girl returned gently. "Your family is happy and proud."

"Yes, yes," She waved it off carelessly, not wanting to talk of her impending marriage when she could learn so much right now about ninjas. "It is truly an honor, but I can only wish it will, _well_, develop into true love." She blushed, relieving her conversations with her girlfriends, hoping to make such a connection with this one. _Ninja or not, she's still a girl!_

"It will be different than what you expect, certainly" The girl answered diplomatically.

She frowned at the evasive answer then decided to be more forward. "Ne, what about you then? Wouldn't you like to marry for love?"

The kunoichi's gaze shifted for a moment. "Hai, I did."

Her eyebrows shot into her hair. "_How _old_ are you?!_"

"I'm eighteen." The girl grinned, eye curving into happy slits.

_At that age, she and her friends wore sundresses and flirted with the village boys._

Years of ingrained etiquette barred her from becoming too forthcoming with her next questions. _How exciting it must be._

"Is it hard, I mean, since you're a ninja…?"

"It is worth it," The girl answered politely.

There was a minute of silence, in which she just stared at the kunoichi (who, in turn, was watching the terrain and frowning at the rapidly waning sunlight). "You marry young."

"We do not have the luxury of waiting." A pause and a sheepish smile. "Again, it is worth it."

**

* * *

**

They set up camp when night fell, three large pitched tents huddled around a small campfire. The trio of ninjas took turns keeping watch around the perimeter.

_They fear the night more than we do_, she thought to herself, frowning at their tense postures and silent paranoid gestures.

Right now, the girl and the leader were conferring together, talking rapidly. She approached them hesitantly, unwilling to settle for the night.

They noticed her movement immediately and stopped talking. The girl sent the leader a warning look and flew off.

She felt a bit hurt at the rather brusque reception. Maybe it had been too much to expect a girly bonding experience with a _kunoichi_.

The leader turned and automatically asked if she needed anything. His terse demeanor really did not fit with his boyish looks.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, wondering if she was being too forward, then steeled herself.

"You seem close," She commented quietly. _Could it be possible? Was he –?_

The young man smiled, his face softening unconsciously. "She is my sister-in-law. My brother's wife… but we've known each other since we were kids."

_Ah._

"Why is your brother not here instead?" She asked curiously, her face brightening.

The shinobi gave her a weird look then recomposed his face. "My brother is…_different_. ANBU." _As though that explained everything._

"What is that?"

"You don't need to know," The male smiled, too sunny to be genuine.

"So, you'll be protecting her in his stead, right?" She teased coyly.

"I'll _always_ protect her," He muttered to himself, rolling his eyes. He didn't seem to realize he'd said it aloud. "You must sleep now. We will be getting an early start tomorrow."

Then he left.

Her mouth was still hanging open as an unholy light filled her eyes.

_He was in love with the girl_. The poor bastard.

She nearly laughed. Maybe they weren't so different from normal people after all.

* * *

They encountered bandits on the second day.

It shouldn't have been a problem. Except that a couple of them had ninja training and were more difficult to incapacitate.

She watched it all with a kind of mute horror from her place behind all her escorts, watched three big burly men with large blades ganging up on the girl half their size, watched their leader move lightning fast against his own foes while dodging a rain of needles and kunai, the third one performing a series of hand gestures and releasing an inferno.

The danger had never been so real before. The stories never mentioned how _messy_ it was. That there would be blood and sweat and spit and dirt stains on their clothes. That the clang of weapons and the crunch of bones and the sound of flesh being sliced apart would assault their ears.

It was over as quickly as it started.

_Then she realized that it was getting harder to breath._

It was the kunoichi who first noticed her hyperventilating and ran to her, offering the comforts of a soothing hand and caring voice and kind words.

She tried not to stare at the fierce bruising or the fleshy iron smell of the shoulder she was crying on.

It was only after she calmed down that the girl let go of her.

She looked imploringly at the other girl's face, wanting desperately to let out the tension by _talking _about it, when she caught the kunoichi's eyes and suddenly felt betrayed.

The girl's eyes were as blank and untroubled as ever.

_Was that some sort of psychological technique to get me to calm down?_

Even their _concern _wasn't real.

Was there anything about these people that _wasn't_ an illusion?

* * *

If she thought the second day was bad, the third day was much _much_ worse.

Everything went downhill, only half a day from their destination.

It had started out normally enough, even though there was a new pervading silence and distance between the civilian and shinobi groups.

Suddenly, the girl appeared from above where she'd been scouting and threw a kunai into the trees.

"There aren't supposed to be _spiders_ in this area," she whispered when everyone turned to her. "That was the third one I saw."

Two of them immediately went to investigate while motioning for everyone to arm themselves.

In less than a minute he was burst back into the trail.

"Get away from here, _now!_" (It was already too late.)

Two men stepped out after him at a leisurely pace, wearing dark robes with blood red clouds.

That was when the nightmare began.

_This mind-numbing fear. This choking aura._

Everything about the sight made her want to scratch her eyes out and tear her own throat. Her blood felt frozen and she couldn't move except to quiver helplessly.

"Annoying, un,"

"I told you not to scatter those things around,"

"Fine, fine, I'll clean up,"

_The sound of a something flying through the air. An explosion of blood._

* * *

"We got lucky," That was the first thing the leader said since he regained consciousness. "They were only passing by." His torso was heavily bandaged and only a stump was left of one of his arms.

"There's no point staying for a corpse. The most important thing is to finish this mission. Let's _go _– it's only a few more hours from here." He had to be helped up by his teammate, who had severe though less fatal injuries himself.

She cast a final glance at the makeshift graves and felt a wave of hot angry tears rushing to her eyes and a surge of terrible anger at his aloof face. _Not six hours ago, that 'corpse' was your sister and comrade! How could you be so heartless?!_

**

* * *

**

"The summons please," it made sense that their identities would be checked. There had, after all, only half the number of people expected to arrive – not to mention they all looked like they'd come from a warzone.

One of her kinsmen tossed it to the leader ninja.

He _couldn't_ catch it. His companion had to pluck it from the cold ground to present to the guard.

"We have to talk to the head of your village. It's _urgent_."

The guard nodded and allowed them to proceed.

Half an hour and a wrong turn later, they finally arrived at the noble's house (their host would be no doubt horrified to learn the details of their journey).

"I'm sorry, I read the map wrong." The leader said, smiling that cheery smile again.

That _god-awful _cheery smile.

It was then she understood just how hard he was taking it, even before the smile wobbled precariously, even before he turned his head away sharply.

No ninja of his rank should have made such an elementary mistake.

_And he still had to explain it to his brother… and their families… and their friends…_

It would have been easier if she didn't see that face.

_Damn, THAT had been real._

She felt like crying again.

**

* * *

**

_Mission accomplished._

She stared at their fading silhouettes, him clutching the still-bleeding wound, the other sprinting behind ready to help, and never wanted to be a shinobi again. _It was too cruel._

**

* * *

**

_The prince and princess lived happily ever after. But the ninja would hemorrhage to death the next day._

**

* * *

**

_Owari_

**

* * *

**

**Notes:** The ninjas here are not Leaf, at least in my POV. They can be whoever you want. I just wanted to slap some background on some of the nameless faceless victims of Akatsuki. The POV of a sheltered, somewhat naïve but ultimately nice civilian.

Point: Happy endings don't apply to shinobi.

**Extra Unnecessary Notes (to uplift the mood!): **I had this Naruto-dream the other night. It started out a bit like the Chuunin exams and ended up something like American Idol. It's all the proof I need to know my brain's finally turning into mush.

**Next up!**

**Pirates (on Epitome) **– I'm still working on it. Darn, it passed 10,000 words and it's supposed to be a _oneshot_.

**CALAMITIES (on Civilian) – **What it means to be a civilian living in a ninja village. [Non-tragic this time. I've had _enough_ of angst.]

"When a great bushfire ravaged the next village, we didn't even bother to worry. The next week, though, a couple of Uchihas had a fight and you know their elemental techniques…"


	3. Hero

**Notes: **It's not "Calamities" – that one's been postponed for lack of inspiration. This one though hit me like a ton of bricks while I was zoning out in class like a delinquent and wrote it out on a scrap of paper which turned out be an important something. What luck.

**Title: **HERO

**Summary: **A civilian remembers the Yondaime as a kid.

* * *

_A man is more than his legend.  
_

* * *

When she is fourteen, her father's trees broke out in bursts of fruit, adding color – Red! Yellow! Purple! – to a field that had only ever been green. The abundance of the harvest has the whole family working, picking off the drupes and berries before they fall on their own.

On the third day, her father, finding the common sense that usually eluded him, hired a shinobi team from nearby Konohagakure to help.

She is unimpressed when they arrive – a big man with lines on his face and three brats younger than her. _Genin_ – her father explains – kids who take on the most mundane missions and have yet to prove their worth in combat.

Callow as though they might be, they work efficiently, darting in and out between the trees, collecting the fruit twice as fast as she could on her best day while their sensei sits back and writes (and giggles uncontrollably).

* * *

On the second day after the ninja arrived, she is tasked to make them lunch. She is still making up a list of things to buy in the market when a blond head pops up at the window.

"If it's not too much trouble," He starts, grinning straight at her and filling her vision with _blue blue blue_. "Jiraiya –sensei wants ramen today."

"Uh, okay," She nods at him, still a little startled, and he is gone.

When she takes them lunch she does not notice the suspicious looks his sensei and teammates throw at him while he happily slurps up the noodles.

* * *

"Hey, what is your teacher always laughing about?" She asks him curiously the next day, when he goes into the house to deposit the next bag of fruits.

"Eh," He blushes ever so slightly and she quirks an amused eyebrow. "You don't really want to know…"

"Why – is it bad?" She challenges playfully. "_Naughty_?"

This time it's a full-on blush and her eyes widen. The kid sighs in defeat.

"Pervert sensei," they mutter together.

A sudden shared understanding and mutual grins of delight. She almost ruffled his hair.

It really wasn't anything special – a simple, sweet moment that could have been easily forgotten if not for the sheer presence of the boy she shared it with.

It ended quickly.

"Oi, Namikaze!" His sensei hollers. "Get your butt out here!"

The boy gives her a wide sheepish grin and runs out with a wink.

She chuckles at his absurdity and wonders how the affable kid ever had it in his mind to be shinobi.

* * *

Nearly a year after that day, when the fruit trees did not bloom as well, there are whispers of a war threatening to break out.

Shinobi teams are suddenly more active and taking on more dangerous missions than simple fruit-picking. Border patrols become more watchful and teams of ninjas wearing animal masks could be seen surveying the terrain.

Her father, in another moment of good sense, tells them to pack up. They were moving before they got sucked in into this awful, awful spiral of events.

* * *

War comes like a thief in the night, stealing everything you loved and everything you took for granted and everything you never even knew you had.

Even miles away from the fighting, she could feel its effects. Faces blur in her mind, always in gray and red: refugees, families, soldiers and shinobi, everyone doing what they could to survive.

Burning and bodies and blood. Loss and grief and hatred. Helplessness, desperation and hope that feels like a heavy stone in the gut.

This is _war_.

And it is in war that heroes rise and men become legends.

The celebrated Yellow Flash leads Konoha to victory.

The constant smell of fire and sulfur and metal and melancholy slowly vanishes from the air.

* * *

She remembers summer and fruits trees, bright colors and sunny smiles.

She may have lost many things, but she still had _this_. Her smile is a little less broken.

In time, she forgets and heals and remembers what peace felt like.

Peace felt like sunshine on budding flowers, like new friends that didn't disappear like mist in the morning, like the precious dreams of a better future.

She finds herself living normally again and stealing every moment of happiness she could get.

* * *

Then, the Kyuubi attacks. The killing intent alone spawns fear from miles around. The report of the increasing death toll breaks her heart.

But Konoha has its genius, its hero. And he is able to defeat the demon.

_Great Yondaime. Brave Yondaime. Beloved Yondaime._

They speak of a man strong, great and dutiful and with a heart as vast as the sky.

But nobody speaks his name.

* * *

She hears the awed whispers of the shinobi passing through the small village where she lived.

It never crosses her mind that their hero, their _martyr_, could be the same bright-eyed kid who asked for ramen and snickered at his own teacher and felt like a little brother years earlier.

How could it – when she can't even imagine the Yondaime to be a mere man?

* * *

_The legends are made perfect by forgetting the facets that made them men.

* * *

_

_Owari

* * *

_

**Next up!**

Something. I don't know. I'm juggling ideas and waiting for one of them to fall on my head.


	4. Pigments

**Title: **Pigments

**Summary: **A life in color, a broken mind, a civilian and a missing-nin.

**Warnings: **Dark?

**Notes: **For SylvanDreamer, my awesome friend with awesome writing skills who should stop refusing to use them, the one who has seen the best and worst of my writings and the one I continually toss story ideas at to get a first reaction. J, I think I described it better than I wrote it.

**Issues: **The complexities of a friendship, obsession, and insanity. Except that it is more insanity than anything

* * *

_Mindfuckery and duckling syndrome and its victims._

* * *

I.

Purple was the color of the flowers her mother held out to her whenever she came home from her day job in the market. She would grasp at the blooms, crushing them between her grubby little fingers, letting the juice leak out and streak it on her dress, on the floor, on the walls with pinpoint precision.

Purple was the color of the bruises beneath her mother's eyes, stark against the pale skin, whenever she is caught doing this. Her mother doesn't quite shout, but there is a sob in her voice than is louder than anything else.

Purple was the color of the grip on her first paintbrush, the means by which she becomes attuned to reality, the only way she can convey the world bursting inside of her. Paint, colors and a surface – this is how she communicates.

* * *

II.

Blue was the color of the sky when she first meets him. Top rookie in his class. He was good enough to spot her amidst the group of bullying kids, like an out-of-place spot in a graceful weave of tones. He is _bright bright bright _and she has to squint when she looks at him.

Blue was the color of the paint he stepped on when he tentatively takes a step closer, squirting the glutinous substance onto the rocks and onto his sandals. He frowns, wondering how he'd missed it and grins in relief because it easily could have been a trap. He beckons and she actually _understands_ and she smiles.

Blue was the color of the ribbon he ties in her hair, a poor match to his _hitai-ite_, a wonderful complement to her stormy cloud eyes he says. Her eyes are startlingly clear when she gazes at him, seeing only him, and the rest of the world fades away to colorless monotones.

* * *

III.

Green is the color of the grass before blood spills on it. Her shoulder burns and she is screaming, screaming, screaming instinctively from the pain. He hisses at the amount of noise she is making, unsure whether he is glad or not that the fatal blow did not connect. With a frustrated grunt he leaves the girl that kept following him around, jarring all her colors, making them stark, painful, clashing and leeching and bleeding into each other.

Green is the color of the healing chakra the medic-nins apply in desperation so her arm might not be completely useless after the night ends. The hospital is devoid of color, she thinks as she sinks into her white sheets, staring at the white walls and the white ceiling. She pulls at the _white _bandages and screams again.

Green is the color of the scarves of the hunter-nin they send after him. She sees the burst of color through a crack in the door, wants to claw desperately at it but her hands will not work as she wants them to.

* * *

IV.

Yellow is the color of the summers that pass before she turns ten, when she says her first sentence when her mother wants to _throw _the ribbon she's always kept, the only thing that remains pure and unblemished amidst objects and people that meld into each other. Her mother drops everything and cries.

Yellow is the color of the paint she uses to decorate her mechanical arm with touches of suns and daisies, that it might match the sundresses she now wears when she goes out with people her age, her mouth working perfectly and her mind starting to become free of cobwebs.

Yellow is the color of the gold she earns, selling her works: landscapes, portraits, stills and whatnot. Her favorites are the ones she does in grays and muted monochrome tones and cracks, because they look the most real. Sometimes she adds fierce veins of blue and they look even better.

* * *

V.

Orange is the color of the fire which burns her latest masterpiece, the most ambitious portrait she's ever attempted, the _face _of the one dream she clings to. Her brush and paints burn with it. In the worst possible manner, her tools betray her.

Orange is the color of the jumpsuit of the ninja who brings the harmony of colors back to her life in the form of a head in a sack and a slashed _hitae-ite_ in his fingers and a note with an apology that came years too late.

Orange is the color of a fruit in the market that she crushes in her hand. She stares a little too hard, a little too intensely at the gooey mess of pulp and juice in her hand and thinks that something is still wrong.

* * *

VI.

She dips her brush, and drowns a canvas in red.

* * *

_Owari_

* * *

**Notes: **It's early morning, I'm high on instant coffee and wrote everything within a self-imposed time limit but, apart from that, I have no excuse for this venomous whatever-it-is.

_More notes: _Okay. I got some sleep. Damn. I think _I'm_ the insane one for writing this. Ah well, it's a new perspective.


	5. Stories

**Title: **Stories

**Summary: **The mundane lives of those left behind.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Notes: **Written while lamenting my life as a struggling college student – to remind myself that there are people much worse off than I am so I should stop being ungrateful. Written within the one hour my experiment needs to finish and I must go off again.

* * *

_The differences between faces and statistics._

* * *

Her childhood ends when a man clad in an animal mask and a breastplate that smells like iron stops by their house, carrying a story that has her mother crumpling in the doorway and words of condolence that could never make up for what they lost.

Her father had been an academy dropout – extraordinarily good as a soldier, but too slow and sluggish to make _shinobi_. In the skirmish, he never stood a chance, not when his opponents could breathe fire too quickly to dodge or make the earth jut out in spikes.

She doesn't cry. She _never _cries.

In one year she would have been eligible to go to the academy.

But that is a dream that was buried a day before her father's remains were.

* * *

She longs to go back to the times when her parents took them out for sundaes on Sundays, when all she had to worry about was school and friends and boys. Instead today her mind is filled with bills, bills, bills and _not enough money_ and her sister's exorbitant school fees and a creeping, wracking cough that her mother facetiously waves away.

She squeezes two part-time jobs after school and lives on ramen everyday and _it's still not enough_ to make ends meet. In one of her jobs, she waits on tables in a local restaurant favored by local shinobi. She looks at them when she's not scampering around for a tip and wants to bitterly ask if they enjoy making widows out of wives and orphans out of children. But she refrains because, _hey, that's life _and everyone does what they can.

She can always tell the _shinobi_ from the regular folk. Not by clothes, not by manner, not by talk. She can tell the minute they saunter up the door, even with her back turned and attention averted.

In another life, she would have been an excellent tracker.

* * *

In her bag there is a bunch of scholarship letters, pressed carefully between her day clothes and the cosmetics that she uses to make a mask of heavy-lidded kohl-painted eyes and smiling red lips that she needs for her other job.

She will get to them sometime after she gets home and gulps down steaming hot ramen and adds whatever extra she earns into the meager nest egg she's been saving. She's always been a good student, forced as she was to be mature and diligent and resourceful at a young age, and if she wasn't always so exhausted she'd have gotten back to the sponsors days ago.

Tonight she writes essays filled with words like _potential _and _ambition_ and _benefit to society_ while gulping some watered-down coffee, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain and her family's soft sleepy mumbles in the next room. She wonders if the people who read the letters will even care to read beyond what is written down.

She wonders if they will see _her_.

* * *

One night she's sitting in the lap of a man who had perhaps half of her intelligence and a tenth of her determination but more than a hundred times her bank account, acting like a twittering airhead to encourage his already overblown ego when the shinobi walks in.

She freezes at the feel of him, turns around fearfully with red painted lips in a small 'o', shivering inwardly at the depth of power shimmering beneath the friendly exterior, wagging eyebrows and teasing smile.

He looks straight at her, makes a come-hither gesture that is riddled with seriousness. She wonders if he can see _her _and suspects that he does.

"_Hey you, what's your story_?"

She looks at the hand holding the pen, poised to write the anecdotes of her life, his big smiling face and somehow the tears just won't stop coming.

* * *

_Every__one has a story to tell._

* * *

_Owari_

* * *

**Notes: **I have been rather dreary lately. Anyway – ten minutes to end of experiment!


	6. Thin Air

**Notes: **Wrote this from the scraps and ashes of an Anastasia-inspired Itahina which I hated because it had Scrapgut-orphan! Hinata, Sophie!Neji, Vladimir!Shisui and Rasputin!Danzo which _was_ very, very funny in my mindview. I merely took out the crack. Nothing crazy like "the uchiha family reunion" - that was my meltdown.

* * *

**Thin Air**

_Discontent was a terribly funny word, _he thinks, _and something that never really goes away. _

_Like hunger, except deeper. As deep as the chasm at the end of his first name._

_Discontent made him feel like he was always running away from something, and never towards anything._

Sometimes – _when caught in the thrill of theft, having too much fun skidding down mountainsides, holding on to the purloined pigs for dear life, or when hanging on with ragtag bands around a muted fire, too sloshed to even care about where the next meal comes from_ – he could barely feel it.

Being maudlin was for idiots and ninjas. Not for orphans, who are too busy being sly and scrappy and grappling to be balls of ugly words like '_need_' and _'want_' and who, besides, may call the millions of other kids littering the country their brethren.

But _occasionally_ –

Like that funeral. It hit him that he'd never been invited to a funeral before. (Or a wedding. Or a festival. Or a party that did not involve seedy characters and bar fights.) Not to be _insensitive_ or anything, but hundreds of people die every day. Was there _really_ no one he needed to say _goodbye_ to?

Talk about not having roots.

"Ah well, you know, I came out of thin air," he would say a bit sheepishly (a bit slyly) when introducing himself to the groups of misfits he would tag along with every two weeks or so. It scares him how much it could be true, even when he knows that, most likely, he was not that special in a world of ninjas where orphans were common as dirt.

Wouldn't it be just _great_ to imagine himself the last survivor of a remote village? Or that his parents – faceless beings they might be, he prays he didn't inherit his prominent ears from his mother, poor woman – hid him away because they were being hunted down by some _shinobi _overlord? Or if he was actually the illegitimate spawn of some real snazzy lost princess or a ninja hero who couldn't stay?

(Depending on the circumstances, he just might hate them. Or he just might love them unconditionally.)

He hates bloodline limits. (No, it's not because the last time he tried sneaking in a Hidden Village he'd had to outrun some kook with laser-shooting eyes.) He hates them because he gets so jealous he just might kill himself.

There you are! Instant tickets to _ancestry_!

_Kami_, he wants _one_, even the stupidest, most impractical, most humiliating kind like that one in Kiri where those poor, ugly fools could blow themselves like pufferfish. It doesn't even have to a bloodline limit, just _anything_ removed from his nondescript self. Like in softhearted _and very rich and very open-handed_ Konoha where you could practically _see _who's related: Uchiha cheekbones! Hyuuga poise! Yamanaka sass! Nara smexiness!

Ah but he's got _nothing_ of them. He has cheekbones he's never seen in another face, non-existent poise, no small amount of snark and airheaded-charm for every occasion and forged his own brand of smexiness as though it really mattered.

_All his._

Its kinda really lonely.

* * *

"_Your father's a man who taught you who you are  
Mine was never there  
So how can you say I don't come out of thin air?"_

Out of Thin Air, Aladdin 3

* * *

_End._

**Review?**_  
_


	7. Two Days

**Two Days**

_What do you see at the end of your life?  


* * *

_They say when you're dying your entire life should play before your eyes, a succession of image-sound-sensations showing what you got right or where you've gone wrong.

She remembers only two days.

* * *

The first day, covered in shimmering memory dust and translucent lights, was only a day removed from the start of summer and she'd been glaring down at him for having the gall to take what was _hers_.

It was presumptuous, since no one really owned the fruit tree that grew at the edge of the village seemingly just to tempt its inhabitants with its luscious colors and visions of pies in the making, but _she_'d been climbing it _first_. It didn't matter that he was faster, and was already peeling fruit before she'd even reached the third branch, the crusty bark making imprints on her palms like they didn't on his, and she'd fumed with indignation.

That was her first impression of ninjas: _they were incredibly rude_.

She might've seen him smile and mouth something if she wasn't squinting, for he was silhouetted against the sun and sparkly with sweat, all long limbs dangling from where he sat on the thin, thin branch that looked like it couldn't hold her weight, much less his.

Slightly (and stupidly) oblivious of their precarious positions and hankering for revenge, she'd grabbed for the slingshot she'd hastily grabbed that morning as she stumbled out in perpetual clumsiness, and a couple of riverstones her brother had tucked into the pockets of _his_ pants.

Ready.

Aim.

_Fire_.

She remembers crying out when he'd so nonchalantly flipped over to dodge the stones, a move that would've sent him plunging if his feet hadn't been glued with chakra. She remembers falling herself because she'd never learned to tell the difference between dendritic limbs and solid ground and had rushed to help.

She remembers being held up by the toes.

She remembers him calling her _stupid _and _idiot _and _moron, why the hell did I help you if you still fall?_

She remembers how summer seemed to come early, with all its heady fragrances and hazy magic.

* * *

The second day, it had been a festival, moonlit and magical and where the river sylphs seemed to sing in exultation of life, and she'd invited him to introduce (show off) to her friends. Until then he'd been known as _her outsider_, _her exotic highwayman_, _her moonlight prince _and if it wasn't incredibly true, she'd laugh. She'd known about his – _job_ sounded so flat – and it really did seem like he would vanish in and out of her life without notice into a hazy fog of covert missions and far-off places.

She'd known, and understood, and had been content. Other women had endured this endless repetition of uneasy vigils, and she would too.

He'd fast gotten bored by the festival activities, and had gallantly tried to hide it with careful words and laughter, but it was clear that some time between the fire-eating and acrobatic acts, his mind had gone off to somewhere she wouldn't comprehend.

She'd playfully sighed, and he'd taken her somewhere else, piggyback, over rooftops and forests and woodbridges and green rivers, to a huge, huge tree near his own fortified and dead-silent village.

On the tree was carved:

A messy scrawl, a bold strikethrough: _H x M_

A proud declaration: _JIRAIYA x TSUNADE_

A prominent: _M x K_

And others: _S x I, H x Y, I x H, N x S… s_o many others.

He takes a kunai, and adds your existence to the chain.

* * *

She's dying and she hasn't even seen their child yet. She's dying, and the sheets are growing scarlet with her lifeblood. She's dying, and her husband feels a million miles away, off in his world. She's dying and she sees only two days.

She remembers only the slingshot, and the carved initials. And, somehow, that's all she needs.

_P-please come back – at least one of us should be here._

She closes her eyes and everything falls away.

* * *

_End._

**Notes: **Like you weren't expecting this. Every story needs a cliché.


	8. Shadows

**Notes: **I am merely a mindless soul-sucking peacock. Don't mind me.

This is about a shinobi-turned-civilian, and the way you can't really escape your past.

**Warnings: **Dark, horrible stuff.

* * *

**Shadows**

_She grew up in a world vaulted by hatred and double-edged loyalties, grew up strong, grew up feared, and yet ..._

* * *

..._babies make her cry._

In the town where she resides unknown, she is famed for her aversion the younger generation. Children down the street whisper and giggle about the cranky spinster who alone does not invite gangs of kids into her house. Well-intentioned women often try to ease her into their circle – _you're still young, dear, and very pretty_ – and ply her with all sorts of motherly objects and babysitting things and she will feel as broken as a piece of glass crushed underfoot.

Tears run in tight rivers down her cheeks, curling quietly round a scar, bursts on the paisley-print dress that's almost too idiotic for wearing, and she –

_I'm sorry, it's silly of me but I can't do this._

In the privacy of their weekly gatherings, the mothers wonder if she'd had a child at some point, whom she hadn't been able to protect.

But the truth is she remembers a nursery not a hundred miles away – the distance could be in lightyears, but she'd still feel the sticky palm of guilt on her cheek – and a pair of infant girls in matching baby jumpsuits, so beautiful and so dangerous for the bloodline they carry. In fifteen years, they will be revenge-seekers – _probably _– and if she didn't murder them as well, her mission will have failed.

* * *

..._the way to properly hold a knife eludes her._

She still holds the gleaming blades like she's a hair's breadth away from stabbing something, keeps them sharp enough to cut through bone and sinew, buys them light enough to throw.

Her handwriting comes sharp and jagged as orders in a battlefield. She subconsciously counts the number of escape routes in a family restaurant. She sleepwalks like she's doing katas and acts like she's never quite known gravity.

She still trods on sand and earth without leaving the shape of a footprint, can't bring herself to wear the spice of perfume – _Inuzuka_, the words comes and doesn't quite hurt – and forgets to sink when treading water.

Because, even when the mind forgets, the body remembers.

* * *

_...trashy novels and maudlin melodramas she can't seem to get enough of._

She had earned enough in blood money to buy entire libraries and does so with a zeal that surprises even her. She goes for it – teenage romance and paperbacks and fantasy and painfully silly things about people fighting and loving and concocting cheap revenge plots – smooth, shimmery covers and crisp paper.

People – _other_ people who'd never had to live in the wet, clammy fear of the world and its hidden rottenness – look down on her for it, think her shallow and frivolous but –

But she _loves_ these frivolous things, loves them enough to weep helplessly over the clichéd lives and fickle romances and unworthy deaths of fictional characters, even when she had stood dry-eyed over the graves of dead people whose love had been a blessing to her existence. It didn't make sense but for the fact that it made her forget the sacrificial nature of the things that _had _happened and _had _mattered.

* * *

_... she's still jumping at shadows._

There are these things called hugs, which feels to her like the tip of a kunai at her back, tearing at vertebra and through her chest. Tension would sizzles along her skin and she would step out of the hug like she would out of hell, relieved that she had not ripped the throat out like she did the first time.

There are those cold nights at a lonely street corner reminds her too strongly of the freeze of death, of a storm at the edge of a Hidden Village an ocean away, huddled and singe-mindedly resolute. On those corners, she would jump at shadows and grasp at a katana that was no longer there.

There is a kitchen sink and an entire bathroom she had replaced the rainy, gray morning after she had moved in, purposely walking slowy through the rain to the local contractors, because the rust which looks too often like flecks of blood dried up.

It is both terrible and amusing that the things she'd never used to fear – _the weak flare of chakra, meals made by another, friendly faces _– could have her sitting up in her bed all across the night, gripping a metal pipe because all her shinobi gear were left collecting dust in the annals of an ANBU storage locker, paranoid out of her mind.

* * *

_End._


	9. Paperwings

**Notes: **I shouldn't have written this, except I did. Because it just refused to be ignored. (What I _really_ want to finish right now, if my suddenly-existent-schedule permits – _and it doesn't_ – is the Madara/Hidan mindfcky thing or the Vongola Primo genfic. Both will never see the light of day, of course.)

Also, people who know me, like we've exchanged a few PM's – you know who you are – I'm sorry for ignoring you and your posts – the alerts are accumulating in my inbox. I owe you all tons of reviews, but this mean thing called _real life_ is catching me in a chokehold.

**Disclaimer: **Naruto is Kishimoto's.

* * *

**Paperwings**

"_This is the best I can do for you, darling, I'll fasten you with paperwings. I pray it'll save you from the world, and save you from yourself."_

* * *

In the watery light, the sight of puddles carry him back in time to the vast pools of Kiri, where he was stood enthralled upon the trunk of a mangrove half-drowned in seawater, watching streams of fish flicker gold in the torchlight. The nights there had been murky with fog and mystery, and the water half-whispered siren calls to men, and the sunrises – magnificent.

A thousand miles and a decade away, he finds himself painting them; his memory and his art are thin barriers of unbridled beauty against the harsh world of the struggling.

He dreamed Suna, and reached only as far as Amegakure. What an horrible compromise.

In canvas, he drowns out the freeze of standing in the rain for an entire half hour, stopped in his tracks by the most finely-crafted parchment he's ever seen, fingers aching to touch it, on a pedestal in a store window; forgets the broken shutters of his apartments, the cold seeping into his bones; ignores the despair of standing on a street corner, two weeks worth of watercolour running into the ground around him.

He's an artist, he tells himself, and so long as there is beauty, there is hope. But in time, leeched at by poverty and broken by a world that doesn't run on dreams, he loses hope, finds dope, and there are days he can't remember his own name.

* * *

He finds beauty again – she has a dancer's body, plastic pearls at her ears, charcoal-framed eyes that just cups his heart and steals it away at first glance. She is a study in fragile angles, and colours like the captured rain – _translucent white and storm-cloud gray and hazy blue _– he loves her, he knows he does, its burns bright in him, jewel-toned scarlet, soaring like a phoenix from the ashes of his miserable existence.

_Hope_, he realizes, _has found him again._ It offers him a place in the world, if he'll have it. He takes it without hesitation.

She's got flowers in her hair and spangles on her arms, and he kisses her one day under the flap of a bright-red umbrella, feeling clean for the first time in a long, long while.

He takes a job – _he's not entirely incompetent, merely too much of an idealist_ – doing diplomatic relations, it pays well – _most jobs that included handling shinobi_ _would_ – and for once, his oft-relentless spirit is settling into a quotidian, content and peaceful, his wings folded, his empty spaces filled and his horizons no longer for chasing.

* * *

His daughter is the smallest, loveliest thing in his lifetime. His carved bones are somewhere there, recognizable, and his wife's colors, but she seemed to be made of something else entirely, probably heaven, he thinks. Not an hour old and he was already dead meat at her tiny hands, putty to be fashioned as she wanted it, an empty palette to be poured on and drawn upon.

When she is five, he tickles her cheeks and laughs and dreams and teases her about the boys – _they won't love you like I love you _– she plays too often with. She starts putting flowers in her hair, taking after her mother, weeds and wildflowers, and he chuckles as he pulls them out before tucking her in. there are angels by her bed, dozens upon dozens, small and ethereal – he painted them as she grew demanding, and crafted them out of old paper and wood, carving her smile on them, shaping wings spread out, made to catch the endless sky.

He'll remember the past, and think:

_Because I love you, I'll let you soar, and raise you above all the pain and bitterness of this love-hungered earth. You'll grow up without ever losing hope, and you'll chase after dreams without fear of falling, as long as I'm around._

* * *

It is a gray and dreary year in Amegakure. Sheets of rain crash and explode on the rooftops, a steady roar that backgrounds the louder, more terrible sound of warbombs.

He is torn into shreds when his wife dies, a snuff almost unnoticed, caught in the unending exchange of blows between three hidden villages. He holds his daughter all through the sorrow-ridden night, hugging her to his chest, whispering words full of faith, but empty of certainty. He fastens her paperwings like he'd always done, like things hadn't really changed for the worst, like it'll save her when he can't, an angel of used paper and the desperate hope of a young father.

_This is the best I can do for you now, darling, I'll pray it'll save you from the world._

And, with a feeling undefined – the same feeling as when he catches her huddled in the doorway the first months of war, eyes too focused on the rain-swept remains of their village, on the _shinobi_, her hands fisted in what seemed too much like that dangerous brand of determination he once had –

He adds this: _I pray it'll save you from yourself._

* * *

The last dawn, and he's leaving his daughter alone, _if only, if only, if only…_

The light fades, colours stripped away, and through a stream of dew and fog and tears, his and hers, he carefully memorizes the feel her face – _it is the fine paper admired through a pane of glass – _the tranquil blue of her hair – _it is perfect shade of the deep seas of Kirigakure _– the smile like warm, streaming sunbeams on his soul.

_I love you, I love you, I love you so, please, remember your paperwings and fly. It won't matter if they're rain-soaked or pain-soaked, because you were loved, Konan, so deeply loved, and I pray that will always be enough to carry you through._

And he is ripped away.

* * *

_End._

**Notes:** A specific civilian! A life-story that is, in all likelihood, _wrong_.

I apologize for the excessive imagery, but my job is very technical and this is the only venue where I can play with words as much as I want.


End file.
